Where is, then, the treason, the iniquity, the surprise, if, after nine months of vain efforts to reach an honorable understanding which recognized in equitable measure our rights and our liberties, we resumed liberty of action? The truth is that Austria and Germany believed until the last days that they had to deal with an Italy weak, blustering, but not acting, capable of trying blackmail, but not enforcing by arms her good right, with an Italy which could be paralyzed by spending a few millions, and which by dealings which she could not avow was placing herself between the country and the Government. [Very loud cheers.]
I will not deny the benefits of the alliance; benefits, however, not one-sided, but accruing to all the contracting parties, and perhaps not more to us than to the others. The continued suspicions and the aggressive intentions of Austria against Italy are notorious and are authentically proved. The Chief of the General Staff, Baron Conrad von Hoetzendorf, always maintained that war against Italy was inevitable, either on the question of the irredentist provinces or from jealousy, that Italy intended to aggrandize herself as soon as she was prepared, and meanwhile opposed everything that Austria wished to undertake in the Balkans, and consequently it was necessary to humiliate her in order that Austria might have her hands free, and he deplored that Italy had not been attacked in 1907. Even the Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs recognized that in the military party the opinion was prevalent that Italy must be suppressed by war because from the Kingdom of Italy came the attractive force of the Italian provinces of the empire, and consequently by a victory over the kingdom and its political annihilation all hope for the irredentists would cease.
GENERAL KONRAD VON HOETZENDORF
On the Staff of the Archduke Eugene in the Campaign Against Italy
THE ARCHDUKE EUGENE
Titular Commander in Chief of the Austrian Forces Operating Against Italy
We see now on the basis of documents how our allies aided us in the Lybian undertaking. The operations brilliantly begun by the Duke of the Abruzzi against the Turkish torpedo boats encountered at Preveza were stopped by Austria in a sudden and absolute manner. Count Aehrenthal on Oct. 1 informed our Ambassador at Vienna that our operations had made a painful impression upon him and that he could not allow them to be continued. It was urgently necessary, he said, to put an end to them and to give orders to prevent them from being renewed, either in Adriatic or in Ionian waters. The following day the German Ambassador at Vienna, in a still more threatening manner, confidentially informed our Ambassador that Count Aehrenthal had requested him to telegraph to his Government to give the Italian Government to understand that if it continued its naval operations in the Adriatic and in the Ionian Seas it would have to deal directly with Austria-Hungary. [Murmurs.]
And it was not only in the Adriatic and in the Ionian Seas that Austria paralyzed our actions. On Nov. 5 Count Aehrenthal informed the Duke of Avarna that he had learned that Italian warships had been reported off Saloniki, where they had used electric searchlights—[laughter]—and declared that our action on the Ottoman coasts of European Turkey, as well as on the Aegean Islands, could not have been allowed either by Austria-Hungary or by Germany, because it was contrary to the Triple Alliance Treaty.
In March, 1912, Count Berchtold, who had in the meantime succeeded Count Aehrenthal, declared to the German Ambassador in Vienna that, in regard to our operations against the coasts of European Turkey and the Aegean Islands, he adhered to the point of view of Count Aehrenthal, according to which these operations were considered by the Austro-Hungarian Government contrary to the engagement entered into by us by Article VII. of the Triple Alliance Treaty. As for our operations against the Dardanelles, he considered it opposed, first, to the promise made by us not to proceed to any act which might endanger the status quo in the Balkans, and, secondly, to the spirit of the same treaty, which was based on the maintenance of the status quo.
Afterward, when our squadron at the entrance to the Dardanelles was bombarded by Fort Kumkalessi and replied, damaging that fort, Count Berchtold complained of what had happened, considering it contrary to the promises we had made, and declared that if the Italian Government desired to resume its liberty of action, the Austro-Hungarian Government could have done the same. [Murmurs.] He added that he could not have allowed us to undertake in the future similar operations or operations in any way opposed to this point of view. In the same way our projected occupation of Chios was prevented. It is superfluous to remark how many lives of Italian soldiers and how many millions were sacrificed through the persistent vetoing of our actions against Turkey, who knew that she was protected by our allies against all attacks on her vital parts. [Cheers.]